Benefiting from increased DBA productivity due to lower complexity and higher efficiency cited above, businesses could save up to $33,520.47 per year per DBA by using Oracle Database 11g rather than Microsoft SQL Server 2008.

The main areas of difference between the two products identified in the report were:

Analysts with Edison Group acknowledge that there are a number of ways to interpret the significance of the savings stated above, depending upon a variety of factors. Organizations need to consider its size as well as the relative importance of higher productivity and the need for superior performance for specific tasks and classes of tasks.

"What is clear is that both Microsoft and Oracle have provided their customers with efficient tools for management of their respective database systems," the report states. "But when the cost of operations is analyzed, Oracle Database 11g can provide organizations with 41 percent annual DBA-related cost savings over Microsoft SQL Server 2008."

Readers interested in reading more about these finding will find the 85-page report explains the criteria used in the study, including how researchers weighted and calculated the results and a description of the workloads evaluated. It also presents the results of each set of tests, providing summary findings and a discussion of their relevance to business operations. The Appendices provide details on the test platform, clarification of architectural and
terminology issues, the detailed test results, a discussion of the Edison Group's Complexity Calculation Formula, a detailed list of the actual steps performed and their individual timings, and a glossary of task areas.

This report is one in a series of Comparative Management Cost Studies (CMCS) comparing Oracle Database with database management systems offered by other leading enterprise software vendors. Another report on Oracle Database 11g vs. IBM DB2 Enterprise 9.5 is available for review.